Yahoo to shutter seven services starting April 1

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer caused quite a stir recently when she made the decision to end the company’s work from home policy. The changes continue to come as Mayer is shutting down seven products according to a recent post on the company’s official blog.

Effective April 1, 2013, Yahoo will shut down the following services: Yahoo Avatars, Yahoo app for BlackBerry, Yahoo Clues, Yahoo App Search, Yahoo Sports IQ and Yahoo Message Boards website. As of April 16, 2013, the company will no longer support the Yahoo Updates API.

Yahoo said they were making the changes in an effort to sharpen their focus moving forward by continuing to hone in on core products and experiences. They believe this is the best way to go about making existing products the very best they can be.

Executive vice president of platforms Jay Rossiter said the most critical question they ask is whether the experience is truly a daily habit that still resonates with everyone. In some cases it means updating products like they have recently done with Flickr for iPhone and iPod touch, Yahoo Mail and the company’s homepage. In other cases, they had to make the decision to shut down some products.

Mayer hinted that some cuts would be coming during an investor conference last month. At the time, she said Yahoo would reduce the 60 to 75 disparate mobile apps they currently own down to a more manageable 12 to 15.